Candles from HIV AIDS victim

What I started thinking at that moment is the Love for children, Love from parent’s heart. Even dad loves and cares their children. I have seen mothers loving their children but was rare that I saw a Live love to son from dad, father.

Yes, may be that dad was hiding the truth or just pretending to sale his products but still do believe that there was a love in his words. Because may be love cannot be explained and has no meaning but love can be felt and understood.

His hands were swelling very badly too and his words were not that clear. May be that was the problem because of HIV AIDS. He even explained that AIDS is a bad disease in society but still he is fighting to secure and make safe to his son’s future. Until he lives he wants to do much for his son.
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U.S. Doctors for Africa treating HIV/AIDS & infectious diseases

U.S. Doctors for Africa, with head office in California, is an American charity that focuses on HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases affecting Africa.

Some of their projects include:

Ethiopia- Supporting the Zewditu Memorial Hospital in Addis Ababa City providing technical services, medical training, supplies and equipment.

Tanzania - working with Tanzania’s National Care and Treatment Plano to provide HIV-positive residents with with medical care, building the health care infrastructure of Tanzania (training, facilities, equipment) and to increase education and communication efforts related to public understanding of HIV/AIDS and other diseases.

Africa USA Sister Hospitals Partnership Project - Medical manpower and resources will be shared between United States hospitals and African medical facilities to treat HIV/AIDS and other diseases.
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New Phase 3 Study In Treatment-Naive Adults With HIV Evaluates Efficacy And Safety Of Once-Daily PREZISTA(TM)/ritonavir Vs. KALETRA(R)

Results from a new ongoing, randomized, controlled, open-label Phase 3 study showed that 84 percent of treatment-naive HIV-1 infected adults taking an investigational dose of PREZISTA(TM) (darunavir) 800 mg (two 400 mg tablets) with 100 mg ritonavir once daily with TRUVADA(R)(1) (emtricitabine and tenofovir disoproxil fumarate) reached an undetectable viral load (<50 copies/mL) at week 48, compared with 78 percent of patients taking KALETRA(R)(2) (lopinavir/ritonavir) 800 mg/200 mg once daily (or 400 mg/100 mg twice daily) with TRUVADA. The mean difference in response between the treatment groups was 5.3 percent (95 percent confidence interval -0.5; 11.2). read more

Helen completes her last HIV Educators’ Seminar

Helen Savage conducted her last HIV Educators Seminar this week. She is due to return to England this Friday after volunteering with HINT for over 3 months.While here Helen donated so much of her business and medical skills to HINT and the Buea community as a whole.She spent time researching strengths and weaknesses of micro finance Institutions in Buea. Her research has been very useful in further developing HINT’s micro finance project. Her achievements are many among which are:

Improvements to Heather’s HIV Training of Trainers’ PowerPoint presentation.
She conducted a number of HIV HIV Educators seminars.
She wrote a complete business proposal for our micro finance project based on her research in Buea. read more

Raltegravir Reduces HIV Virus to Undetectable Levels in Triple-Class Resistant Virus Cases: Presented at ICAAC

The investigative HIV integrase inhibitor raltegravir effectively reduces virus to undetectable levels even when the virus is resistant to three classes of antiretrovirals.

In the 48-week analysis, doctors said that more than half of all patients on one of three different dosages of raltegravir achieved an undetectable viral load.

In a report to the 47th Annual Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC), researchers said that all doses of raltegravir were superior to an optimized background of available antiretrovirals.
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Anonymous HIV tests overdue

TWENTY years after Quebec began offering anonymous HIV/AIDS testing, Manitoba is preparing to offer the service to people in Winnipeg and Brandon.
The provincial government is expected to announce a $2-million program of testing, treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted infections. A government spokeswoman said details of the program will be released this afternoon at a news conference at Nine Circles Community Health Centre.

"They're doing the right thing but they're about 20 years behind," said Leon Mar with the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network.

Quebec, Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Alberta and Saskatchewan already offer anonymous HIV testing, said the spokesman for the Toronto-based non-profit group that represents 200 organizations in promoting the human rights of people living with or vulnerable to HIV/AIDS, in Canada and internationally. read more

HIV patient faces time for unprotected sex

An Illinois woman faces 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to charges she had unprotected sex with her boyfriend despite having the AIDS virus.

Angela Harris, 27, St. Charles, Ill., is to be sentenced next month on two counts of knowingly and recklessly risking infection of another person with the HIV virus.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch said Harris had been infected with HIV since she was 14.

Harris was arrested last year after her mother tipped off the boyfriend to her condition. The newspaper said the boyfriend tested negative for the virus.
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Voluntary HIV-screening for all adult male inpatients at hospitals

SINGAPORE: By year's end, all adult male patients admitted to hospitals will be asked if they would like to take a HIV-screening test.

Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan told Parliament on Tuesday he is also changing the Infectious Diseases Act soon so that no one will be able to claim ignorance of one's HIV-positive status as defence against charges of high-risk behaviour.

He said: "All individuals who engage in high-risk sexual behaviour must go for regular HIV-testing. The Infectious Diseases Act makes it an offence for someone who is HIV-positive to have sex without informing his sexual partner of his HIV status. I will soon come to this House to amend the Act to clarify that ignorance of one's HIV status will not be a defence for those who engage in high-risk sexual behaviour."read more

Helping Those Living With HIV/AIDS

In an effort to continue the support they provide to those living with human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome, Thursday's Child, a non-profit organization based in Patchogue, is holding a private luncheon benefit on October 7, from noon to 4 p.m., at Atlantis Marine World in Riverhead.


The organization also is asking all residents to participate in Macy's "Shop For A Cause" on October 13. This event, which costs $5 per person, raises funds and awareness for many charities throughout the country. According to Gregory Noone, program manager for Thursday's Child, the organization is in need of support more than ever, as recent changes made by Congress in 2006 resulted in a loss of more than $1 million in funding this year for charitable organizations in the Nassau/Suffolk region. read more

Global Challenges | Chinese Provincial Governments Hampering National Policies on HIV/AIDS,

Provincial and local governments in China are failing to implement national policies on HIV/AIDS, including the provision of no-cost HIV testing, counseling and antiretroviral drugs to low-income populations, the Washington Post reports.

According to the Post, some provincial and local government officials are reluctant to compensate HIV-positive people who contracted the virus through tainted blood transfusions. In addition, some officials are concerned that media reports surrounding HIV/AIDS could hinder investment in local economies. Experts have said the gap between national policies and local practices is the result of a system that makes community-based reform difficult. The central government has the ability to reduce the spread of HIV, but "control and corruption inherent in a one-party system preven. read more

Studies Highlight Superior Performance of Trofile(TM) Assay

Monogram Biosciences, Inc. today announced multiple presentations demonstrating the strength of its Trofile(TM) Assay at the 47th Annual Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC). Among the presentations is one that details the superior ability of Monogram's Trofile assay to identify HIV patients that are most likely to respond to co- receptor inhibitors, a new class of drugs, compared to less sophisticated genotypic approaches. Another presentation reports on technical advances will allow improvements to be made to the assay resulting in a tenfold increase in Trofile's ability to identify patients with virus populations that harbor rare variants that are unlikely to be inhibited by specific drugs in this new class, and consequently are prone to treatment failure.
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HIV-positive rates must drop: Health minister

The high rate of infant and mother mortality is a shame for the state, Dr Surya Kanta Mishra, the state health minister in Siliguri, said today. Dr Mishra was addressing a gathering at the North Bengal Medical College and Hospital this afternoon, after inaugurating a refurbished Anti Retroviral Therapy Centre towards the treatment of Aids patients in north Bengal.

Calling upon the medical fraternity to put forward a dedicated service to lower the exorbitant rate of infant and mother mortality, the health minister said the state government is equipping all hospitals up to the level of public health centres with the related infrastructure facilities.

“We are not only focusing on the medical colleges, but at the same time try to facilitate necessary services and facilities up to the lower level health establishments. This is a must to ensure health services to the common people,” Dr Mishra said.

Referring to the general apathy shown towards HIV-infected persons, both by medical professionals and society at large, the minister cautioned that such attitude would only help the deadly disease to spread. He added that no amount of government decree would change the situation, unless the society changed its mind set towards HIV-infected persons. read more

Sangamo BioSciences Presents Data Demonstrating 'In Vivo' Protection Against HIV Infection by CCR5-ZFN Therapeutic

Sangamo BioSciences, Inc. announced today the presentation of data demonstrating that human CD4 T-cells can be made permanently resistant to HIV infection by treatment with zinc finger DNA-binding protein nucleases (ZFN(TM)) and preferentially survive and expand in an animal after HIV infection. The presentation, entitled, "Establishment of HIV Resistant CD4 T-Cells by Engineered Zinc Finger Protein Nucleases" is taking place today at the 47th Annual Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) in Chicago.

"The positive results being presented at ICAAC continue to strengthen our belief that CCR5-ZFNs are an important and promising class of anti-HIV compounds and may represent a "next generation" of HIV-entry blocking agents," said Carl June, M.D., Director of Translational Research at the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and a co-author of the study. "I look forward to working with Sangamo to bring this program into the clinic as quickly as possible."
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HIV/AIDS vaccination 'within a decade'

Sir Gustav, Australian of the Year in 2000, said scientists were making real progress on the creation of the potentially life-saving vaccines.

"I have no doubt that vaccinations for the big three will be found in the next decade,'' Sir Gustav said.

The Florey Medical Research Foundation is a fundraising arm of the university's medical division.

The Austrian-born scientist is well known for his humanitarian work, promoting Aboriginal reconciliation and projects for the World Health Organisation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

He holds an array of international scientific awards and doctorates, including a breakthrough in modern immunology for which he was knighted in 1977. read more

HIV prevention could save millions in Africa - study

Using drugs to prevent HIV infection could prevent as many as 3 million new cases in Africa if it was done right, researchers predicted on Tuesday.

A daily pill would not even have to prevent infection all the time to have this effect, if it was given to the right people with the proper counseling, the team at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and at Imperial College London said.

"If you do it right, you can prevent lots of infections," Pittsburgh's Dr. John Mellors, who helped direct the study, said in a telephone interview.

The researchers wanted to know if a potential new approach called pre-exposure chemoprophylaxis, or PrEP, would work in a real-world setting.
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J&J says Prezista matches Kaletra in HIV trial

Johnson & Johnson said on Tuesday its drug Prezista was as effective in a late-stage trial as Abbott Laboratories Inc's Kaletra in cutting HIV to undetectable levels among patients not previously treated with HIV drugs.

Prezista, a once-daily protease inhibitor recently introduced by J&J, was given to patients along with Abbott's older protease inhibitor Norvir (ritonavir) and Gilead Science Inc's widely used Truvada. Truvada itself contains two drugs belonging to a separate class of HIV treatments called nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors.
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Pfizer says long-term data shows safety and efficacy of HIV drug Selzentry

Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) Inc said that nearly three times as many patients receiving Selzentry, in addition to an optimised background regimen, achieved undetectable levels of HIV virus compared with those receiving an optimised regimen alone.

'These data continue to demonstrate that Selzentry provides significant benefit to certain treatment-experienced patients,' said Dr Jacob Lalezari, director, Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

'The safety and durability of response seen with Selzentry out to one year in our study is reassuring. This drug is an important new weapon for clinicians who treat HIV,' he added.

Results from the planned 48-week analysis also demonstrated that Selzentry, along with an optimised background regimen, significantly increased CD4 cells, as compared to patients receiving an optimised regimen alone read more

Daily anti-HIV pill could save millions from infection: study

Providing healthy people with an antiretroviral drug to protect them against HIV infection could drastically slow the spread of the virus in sub-Saharan Africa, US researchers said Tuesday.

In a best-case scenario, the drug could prevent three million new HIV cases in this part of Africa over a 10-year span, even if it was only made available to the most sexually active individuals, the investigators said.

"This could represent another tool in our arsenal against HIV infection," said Ume Abbas, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and lead author of the paper
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Accidental HIV victim ponders legal steps

The oldest of 42 HIV-positive South African babies and children with HIV-negative parents, the 16-year-old now wants her mother to take Western Cape health authorities to court over her suspected accidental infection "so that this can't happen to anyone else".

Sarah's family have no idea how she was infected but believe she may have been treated with unsterilised medical equipment while in hospital for TB treatment. Other cases of suspected accidental HIV-infection have been linked to expressed breast milk being given to HIV-negative babies, and dirty syringes in state hospitals.
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